3.7
Quality3.8
Difficulty72%
Would Retake94
Reviews72%
Would Retake
94
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
94 total ratings5
46
4
14
3
8
2
12
1
14
What Students Say
“He is really good professor and excellent researcher that tries to explain fundamentals of architectures clearly and connects it to modern architectures”
CSE420 - 5.0 rating“Must take class and prof”
CSE420 - 5.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
13%
Textbook Required
18%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
A-
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Improving
+0.26 avg changeRatings by Course
CSE420598
5.0
(2)CSE325
4.2
(22)EEE230
4.0
(1)CSE420
3.8
(48)CSE520
3.6
(8)Difficulty by Course
CSE310
5.0
CSE230
4.5
CSE325
4.0
CSE420
3.8
CSE520
3.6
Reviews (93)
Don't take him unless you have lots of programing experience. He give big assignments that should take months and only gives you weeks. Plus there is a quiz almost every week over different stuff than what he taught in class. Expect for this class to take up a decent amount of time. You learn a lot but its too fast, so you can't get it all.
This was probably the worst teacher I have had so far at asu. His assignments are unfair not just b/c of their length, but the level of the material is above the class. On the final exam he changed a fundamental concept that had been presented both in lecture and in the text provided without informing us beforehand. Avoid his class at all costs.
OMG I am mid way through the semester with him and i didn't believe the other two reviews but they are right. I consider myself average at JAVA programming and he gave us a assignment that has taken the majority of ppl well over 20 hours to complete with a 2 week deadline. His grading makes 0 sense i have no idea what grade i have.
I am not complaining about the way he explains it's just that the material is very hard. I could have gotten an A without his impossible to do projects specially the last 2(4 in total)he asked us to write an assembler that translates a program of a fibonnacci sequence in assembly language and get the results in Java,there are better teachers@Asu
Do NOT take this class. In the test he tears down one problem into several questions, and if you got the 1st one wrong dont count for the rest. The labs are about writing an assembler and compiler, which is more about programming skills rather than materials from class. The worst part is he assumes you know everything already.
I have no idea why the other reviews are so harsh?! He is tough but teaches very well. He is concise and truly seems to enjoy teaching. I agree with the stupidity of Labs 3 & 4 but I skipped them completely and still got a B in the class, He has heavily skewed grading so everyone in the class got good grades. I would recommend if CSE over EEE major
Teaches material that is not on the quizzes. Won't tell you what you got wrong on projects. Says to "read the book and learn it yourself", and completely ignores when told in front of the class that he misrepresented the material on the quizzes. Don't waste your money on his class: he doesn't seem too interested in teaching.
Did a good job of teaching interesting material. Projects were difficult, but useful. Quizzes are hard, along with tests. However, much was learned from the class, a feeling not always obtained in college. Most importantly, curves and gives opportunity for extra credit.
Most of the times material on exams and quizzes was not covered in class. His grading system is the worst, he curves backwards, I had 93% in the class and ended up getting a B.
Avoid this guy as you can, he was my worst professor ever. This guy cannot even solve his own examples. Beside, he did not show up almost 3 weeks out of 8 weeks summer session, not following the syllabus. Hard exam, not fair in grading...
Tests were fair, but grading was very strict with little room for partial credit. There were only 4 homeworks, 3 of which were very poorly documented programming assignments.
Very into the subject. Goes very throughly into each topic. Tries to answer all the questions.
I do not understand why some people are so negative about him. He seemed to be really care about our understanding, and takes lots of time to explain things. Sometimes he goes really fast, if you do not follow.
Textbook barely helps; bought it for the green card that could be downloaded online for free. PAY ATTENTION IN CLASS & ASK QUESTIONS! I lot of thinking&confusion about content on tests&quizzes. The way it's worded makes you have to really analyze it even though it's only 2-3 questions. Ended up learning a lot by helping everyone. Study groups=must!
The way he taught the class and asked questions on the exams was pretty confusing. The book was not helpful, so going to class/paying attention was mandatory. He was very helpful if you went into office hours, though. He also gave a 7.5% extra credit project and ended up giving a lot of partial credit on exams towards the end.Easy B, but not easy A
If you're smart, his classes are great. The homework is a little intense, but there isn't too much of it. He allows laptops and internet during exams. He doesn't always explain things clearly, but he's always very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the subject.
Nice. Good course, good teacher.
Must attend classes, or else it will be difficult.
Nice class. Good organization. Will recommend to everyone.
Very interesting way to teach the subject. There is a story everywhere.
What was talked about in lectures, what was done for homework, and what was expected on exams were 3 circles of a venn diagram that do not touch. One mistake on an exam would get you points docked all over the place. Only saving grace was homework was easy but tedious and a 10% extra credit assignment. He says it won't be as easy next semester.
He is really good professor and excellent researcher that tries to explain fundamentals of architectures clearly and connects it to modern architectures. He resolve every question raised by any student and you may see good discussion in the class, sometimes. Also, he tries to make sure that every person in the class understands concepts. Must take!
He is good prof & excellent researcher, explains fundamentals of comp arch very clearly and tries to connect it to modern architectures. He makes sure that everyone in class understands concepts. He resolves questions of every students great and you may find good discussion in class. Projects on gem 5 are good to learn. Must take class and prof!
Awesome.
Very good. Lectures of dr. Shrivaatsava are good and helps a lot to understand the course & to do good in exams. Tests have multi-choice this time, different from past semesters & from other professors' format. If tests are descriptive i.e. u have to justify logical questions like in other top-universities, course can be better. Projects are good.
Dr. Aviral delivers content professionally and clearly & relates with industrial applications. Projects are decent & all resources are very helpful to understand content & inspires to explore subject further. His helping nature & wealthy content of lectures make course memorable. In short, nice course by excellent professor. Must take for cen grads
Awesome Instructor. Clearly explains and very knowledgeable. Would take with him again. Sadly, he does not teach advance courses. 420 is must take course!
Nice lectures
Lectures are worth. But, once in a week lectures were taken by ta who was not prepared and not experienced. Also, content covered was far less, compared to some other top univers It could have been made better. Exams were overall pretty easy and this turned into easy A. Projects using gem5 were interesting. Overall good course and would take again.
Must take for CEN Grads.
Take a Venn diagram, a circle for lectures, a circle for projects, and a circle for tests. In Shrivastava's class, these don't intersect. He gives study guides that don't explain how to solve the problems. He tells us he'll curve the course then doesn't. You won't have a chance for a good grade unless you suck up at office hours.
Excellent professor. This was a new way of doing the course, however, and it showed. The lectures weren't super relevant, the organization of the class could have been improved, but overall it was pretty good. Projects are almost everything, but you still need to study and print notes for the quizzes (exams). Very time consuming class, late nights
Very good new class and good lectures. The projects in the class were amazing. We built a whole autonomous car by ourselves. This is a must take class for not only CS students, but for all engineering students.
I specially liked the car race at the end of the course. It was a lot of work. Things dont work as expected. The magnetometer is moody, the GPS is quirky, and LIDAR is too sensitive... but getting all them to work and have the car working brings such satisfaction!! Now I see how things work, and I feel I can do it.
Lots of work. Projects take a lot of time. I spent a lot of time in this course, but at the end, I would say, it was well worth it. Amazing class... strongly recommended.
He is so kind and always respects the students. Amazing race at the end.
This course is insane amount of work. But the projects are very interesting. This is one of the best classes, I have taken at ASU.
Class was poorly organized, lectures did not help for projects at all, and 50% of your grade is up to chance. Good students get bad grades and you basically have to learn everything on your own.
Very exciting class. Lots of work, but got to learn a lot.
The class was gruelling, but it was an amazing learning experience. What we learned from the class was so useful and confidence-building. I did my capstone by building on top of the car that we built in the course. Inspirational.
Class is run by the TA, lectures are useless, seems like Aviral has no idea of what he is talking about, Test are based in a set of sample question that he posts online (solutions are given but most of the time they skip the steps , so you have no idea how they got to the final answer). Aviral is by far the worse professor I have ever had at ASU.
Hard class, but learned a lot.
The lectures were good, but the projects were very interesting. The final car race was cool.
Aviral is good at delivering the concepts clearly and cares about the students. Final car race was amazing and learned a lot. You have to work to get the good score but effort is definitely worth. There is lot of learning through projects with GPS, lidar and fun to build a car from scratch!! In short, nice class and much more to learn.
This is the coolest class at ASU. We make a autonomous car..... I took the course in Spring 2017, and it was amazing. Reached the finals of the race.
Spent most of the time on this class. Loads of work, but learned a lot. Everyone should take this course.
Great experience building the car. We did not win the race, but did complete it!!
Very well thought out course. Highly recommended.
Great class. Recommended.
Inspiring lectures. Project 3 was hard.
Nice lectures and review classes. Gave lots of extra credits. And so, many other students got A/A+. Exam in every module, but had worth learning experience.
Great class. Very interesting/inspiring lectures. Learned about Spectre and Meltdown. Very clearly explained.
Great project oriented class. Built autonomous car in the class. Very interesting things to study in the class. Was programming in the University lawns.
Lectures were sparse, and more interesting/useful info was supplanted by reiterated examples of various encoding schemes, assembly translation, pipelining execution, etc. Basically CSE230: round 2. Professor provides very accurate and helpful sample exams, and the students graded each other's projects. Worth taking with this professor.
Terrible lecturer. Isn't good at reading the room, so moves on from topics everybody is obviously struggling with. Randomly moves through slides, so notes are impossible. Doesn't explain projects and isn't helpful on Piazza. If you didn't adore 330 or 230, or aren't comfortable with assembly, don't take this class.
Great class. Insane amount of work, but rewarding experience
Lecture's have nothing to do with what's given in our team projects. Tests are out of 10 points, all questions build on each other so either you completely pass a test or fail it all together. When the class average is a 30% on the test, he blames the class for not studying enough even though we spent days at a time in study groups.
Class was a mess. Tests usually had mistakes and were overly tricky and convoluted. Test averages were terrible. Challenging assignments involved outdated instructions for command line programs. More tests than any class Ive had, though 2 were dropped (which didnt end up helping me at all). Overwhelmed instructors couldnt offer much help.
5 exams, drops lowest 2 scores. 8 points extra credit, half letter grade curve. While this class with this instructor may be dangerous to your GPA, the overall learning was fantastic (self supplemented) and the projects were cool when they weren't extremely stressful. Ask LOTS AND LOTS and LOTS of questions in office hours and you'll do well.
I don't think he knows where the classroom is located! He just doesn't care
He simply does not care about this course. He shows up to class part of the time. His lectures are a month behind our projects and he just reads off the powerpoints. Which to me is a clear indication that he probably didn't even write them. The material you are tested on isn't even clearly explained. TA's are never at office hours either. Good luck
I absolutely loved this course. The projects were totally awesome. I learned a lot about building embedded systems. Really hands-on course.
3 Exams of 10 marks each in which 3 or 4 questions are on a single question, fail one fall all. It is as heavy as an EEE 4 credit course with 4 projects which are way harder, we are asked to code in C/C++ and run benchmarks on a processor. The exams are tricky, even studying for it for a week didn't help much. It's good to sleep 1.15 hrs instead.
Aviral stopped showing up to our class really quickly. I'm sure he's an excellent professor in CSE courses, which is what he cares about, not some lame ASU101 class but he could have at least shown some interest. I went to class almost double the amount of times he went. Very easy A literally just show up and type reflections before the class.
Depends on your prior love of CSE 230, this class can be extremely rewarding or very tough. This course really grounded the learning in CSE 230 for me. Prof. explained things in much more depth, and worked with real examples. The programming projects are hard, but I learned a lot from them.
Great course. Projects were tough, but overall fun class.
Took 420 in Spring 2020. We were disrupted by the Coronavirus. I used to really enjoy the lectures, and while the online discussions were not as interesting, overall, I still really liked the course. The projects in this course are a gem. You get to learn a lot from them.
Good, interesting course. Exams can be a bit tricky because they are multiple-choice based. Learned a lot from projects.
Class has no exams but many small quizzes, HOWEVER, be aware these quizzes are one question 0 or 5 point only quizzes, which sound harmless until the you read about the grading scheme being about reaching a set number of points. I warn you ABSOLUTELY do not take this class at a time when you are not 100% mentally available I.E. early morning/Night
Small quizzes instead of midterm exams makes it easier to concentrate on just one topic at a time. Good projects.
Lots of extra credit quizzes. Easy grade, if you get your act together.
Have you ever wanted to take a class where you're graded not by your knowledge or mastery of a subject, but where a small arithmetic error in a 3 page problem can cost you a letter grade because he doesn't look over quizzes for partial credit? This is the guy for you.
Lots of extra credits in the course. Quizzes are binary, but the extra quizzes more than make up for it. Great lectures.
For me, this class grounded my concepts in CSE 230, and made them more practical. Tough projects and easy quizzes. Careful. Very easy to make silly mistakes in the quizzes.
Professor Aviral is really an amazing professor. Very passionate about computer architecture. Lectures are flawless and if you listen carefully, usually no need to even read the slides and quizzes are not bad. Quizzes are binary and worth a lot but he gives enough EC to make up. Skip lectures? you won't pass unless you know everything already.
Very well organized and good lectures. Things are explained very well in the class. You do not even need to read the textbook. Expectations are crystal clear. Would take another class from the instructor again.
Many quizzes. Easy, but also easy to make mistakes on. Tough projects, but guided well through it. Lectures are very useful.
Very good lectures. If you just listen carefully in the lecture, you dont need to read the textbook. Projects are hard, but have a lot of time for them.
He's a great lecturer but this class is very tough for no reason. Exams are difficult algorithmic-type questions but there is no partial grading, so the average for exams is around 40%. The projects for this class are also very time-consuming and hard to implement since building the code takes at least 30 minutes.
You need to attend all the classes if you want to have any hope of doing well, but it is worth it as you will feel like you have learned a lot from it. Bad projects/ bad project grader. The professor took students' feedback, added 15+ points of extra credit, and made the finals relatively easy since most of the class wasn't doing well.
The course structure is very unique. You need to read a lot and summarize papers. The course is setup in a way that you constantly learn in the course throughout the semester. One of the best courses and probably the best professor in SCAI. He is very welcoming to clear doubts outside the class as well.
Easy projects, hard tests, extra credit in class quizzes are hard until you realize they just change the numbers from the sample problems.
Projects are totally fair. Extra credit quizzes so show up to lectures, he actually makes the material easier to understand as well compared to the provided slides. Tests are difficult. I fumbled the first one so prepare well for those. Homework is too easy as well.
Worst prof I have taken in my life (Carter/Indela >>>): -Homework all busy work/not useful for exams (think "read and annotate" like 9th grade of highschool) -Grading abysmal: midterm 5q, avg is F, no curve. All MCQ when should be FRQ. -Does not know what is on his own tests (was surprised multi-select was enabled) -Luck if u get good q's on exams
Projects/HW are easy, fine lecturer. Tests are unfair; you solve FRQs, take one result, and answer with multiple choice. If you messed up at any point, that question is gone. ZERO curve on midterms and final. Test avg is around 55%; no one aced the final. Final 30%. Only extra credit are hard quizzes in class. Show up, he'll take attendance.
Very engaging lectures but he wastes time trying to convince students to participate. No partial credit on 5MCQ midterm exam and 10MCQ final exam which was … horrible. Very good sample questions! He gave 20% extra credit in class with easy pop quizzes from the sample questions (an entire midterm score). Group projects - but were pretty easy.
The midterm structure was awful—5 MCQs with no partial credit was frustrating, and the final being similar made it worse, given the heavy grade weight. Homework felt pointless; I'd have preferred practicing sample exam questions over reading articles and answering questions about the article.
Just stay away
Let diligent plow the fields and the idle reap the harvest.
Class was CSE 494 Quantum Computation. Pretty much a Quantum Mechanics Math class with a couple of Programming projects without much direction. I thought it would be interesting, but ended up learning Math the entire first half of the class. Quizzes were similar to examples in class just worded a little different. Take Phy III before this class.
Lots of extra credit. Passing is easy.
Shrivasta is a good lecturer and makes a very technical subject very easy to engage with and be interested in. He provides extra credit opportunities, and will be very reasonable when you reach out to him should you have any troubles. His lectures are engaging and I'd definitely recommend him even if the course material wasn't the easiest.
Super easy class. Literally everything including homework, projects, tests are all easy. However, the content is incredibly boring, and personally I don't really see a use for it other than people who are going to do a phd in CS, but whatever. Also, for those who complained about tests being too hard didn't show up to class so it's their fault.
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
13%
Textbook Required
18%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
A-
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Improving
+0.26 avg changeRatings by Course
CSE420598
5.0
(2)CSE325
4.2
(22)EEE230
4.0
(1)CSE420
3.8
(48)CSE520
3.6
(8)Difficulty by Course
CSE310
5.0
CSE230
4.5
CSE325
4.0
CSE420
3.8
CSE520
3.6